Did you happen to walk past Sidney Sussex College on the night of February 22?

If so, you’d have spotted a vast wall alive with colourful projections - and a young Italian chap gesticulating wildly in front of it.

And if you happened to stop and watch (and frankly, who wouldn’t?), the final sight you’d have seen would have been a projection of two enormous playing cards.

And if you were wondering what on earth it was all about, allow me to explain…

The Italian chap in question is Alexis Arts, a PhD student-come-illusionist who, as part of this year’s e-Luminate festival, was attempting to break (or, presumably, create) the Guinness World Record for the ‘Largest card illusion reveal’.

Said cards had been picked earlier that evening by two random strangers, but 10 days previously Alexis had already guessed what they’d be, and placed his prediction in three envelopes: one went into a locked box in the Grand Arcade, and one each was given to a journalist and to Hugh Parnell (chairman of Cambridge Energy Forum).

He got it right, too, and has just collected his fancy framed certificate from Guinness World Records in London. This can now be added to his two previous gongs: in 2009 Alexis beat the records of Harry Houdini, no less, to become the ‘Fastest escapee from handcuffs’ and ‘Fastest escapee from a straightjacket’.

And the 27-year-old is leaving space on his wall for many, many more.

I’m waiting to meet Alexis at a Cambridge hotel, and can’t shake the feeling that the 27-year-old, who signs his emails ‘Magical Wishes’, is likely to be more from the Copperfield than the Blaine school of illusionists.

I’m not wrong - he arrives wearing a big smile and a burgundy velvet jacket. Not exactly the garment of choice for your average twenty-something, let alone an Italian.

And Alexis is VERY Italian; we quickly discover there’s something of a language barrier between us. Having said that, the tricks he performs before we get chatting require few words: revealing flames in his wallet, tearing holes in tenners that magically repair themselves, producing screwed up paper from our photographer’s ears... It’s impressive stuff.

But Alexis is not, he insists, just a magician: “The real name of what I am in my language is ‘fantasista’ but there’s no way to translate it,” he sighs. “My background is as a dancer, actor, quick-change artist, mime, illusionist, but it’s difficult here to find a word to describe what you are.”

Growing up in south east Italy, Alexis, whose real name is Danilo Audiello, was encouraged on to the stage by his engineer-turned-magician father at an early age. At 5 he was touring in The Comedy of Errors; by 6 he was making floating objects disappear; by his mid-teens he tells me he was starring in his own shows, combining everything from magic and martial arts to mime and maths.

Alexis then opted to take a backstage role when a band called Pooh (no, really), who he says are “like the Beatles here”, invited him to become their creative director. He obliged, duly wowing the crowds by making their piano float upside down, and creating a two-seater flying carpet.

This led to a job as creative director for a stage version of kids TV show Ben 10, which sees a young boy transformed into a variety of aliens. “They asked me to create the same things that happened in the cartoon in real life,” says Alexis. “They say ‘If in the cartoon the alien shoots fire, we want the same! If someone floats, we want the same! If someone changes, we want the same!’”

But he insists he wasn’t daunted: “Positivity is the secret of any achievement; when you have the idea in your mind, you can achieve it.”

Yet in spite of his success, Alexis is now in the final stages of an economics-meets-illusion PhD, which he began at the University of Foggia and completes here in Cambridge later this year.

The obvious question is why on earth he’s turning his back on the (presumably lucrative) special effects industry to become a student: “Many people ask me the same,” he shrugs. “The thing is that there is no difference; what I love is to be creative.

“If you think about marketing, marketing is an illusion because you have to put in the mind of the people that one product is better than another one. That’s not far from what I’m doing.

“If you are talking about the financial crisis, part of the financial crisis is real, but another is an illusion. Why? Because if you think there is a crisis, you don’t spend your money, then this creates a vicious cycle. From an illusion you create a bigger crisis.”

Alexis is keeping his magical hand in, though, and doing “The Guinness,” as he calls it, was quite a project. He began planning it last December, sacrificing Christmas back home with his family in Italy to develop it and cut through the red tape: “The bureaucracy was huge; the risk assessment for everything…” he says, rolling his eyes. But it all went swimmingly; a video of the event will be released soon, and he’s hoping it’ll go viral.

“The amazing part is when something has finished, because you can see the smile of the people, and in the clap there is the summary of all the work you have done,” he beams. “But when you have finished, after a few minutes you become sad.

“A very important person, a famous actor, said to me ‘Look, when you achieve something, you don’t have to be sad, you have to create a new aim, a higher one, and in this way you can be happy again’. The problem is that every time it is bigger, and it becomes more and more difficult!”

Alexis’s next project is Landmark, a series of movie-come-live action performances at historic Cambridge sites, ranging from Parker’s Piece to the Eagle. Funded by disabled Cambridge entrepreneur Toby Churchill, it’s being filmed throughout the year. “What I really like is not just to create an illusion but to create a story,” he says.

“And I’ve thought many times about many other Guinnesses that are ready to be broken; I have a long list.” One is to teach the largest ever magic lesson: “The record is 3,000 people, and we will attempt it here in Cambridge, with Skype calls to Oxford, Harvard, many other universities. And this summer I will attempt another, for the longest thread produced from the mouth.”

It seems that as long as he’s entertaining everybody, Alexis is happy. “The important drive is to give an emotion for the people. If you are able to amaze someone, your work has meaning,” he says.

“I think that ‘love’ is the main word to describe what I’m doing. I think if you love what you’re doing, you never work.”